The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. However, these advances have increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing are needed. Current IC fabrication processes may require one or more annealing processes at relatively high temperatures. However, these high temperature annealing processes may cause portions of gates of the IC to crystallize. The crystallized portions of the gates provide carrier transportation paths and may result in or contribute to gate leakage currents.
Therefore, while existing methods of fabricating semiconductor gates have been generally adequate for their intended purposes, they have not been entirely satisfactory in every aspect.